They said it couldn’t be done. They tried to tell us that renewable energy could only survive if it were propped up with government subsidies. Never mind that our whole system of economic development, beginning with the patent office, is predicated on the idea that fledgling, underfunded industries need special protection for a limited time until they are strong enough to go it alone. Never mind that the fossil fuel industry, which can hardly be considered fledgling or underfunded, is still receiving billions in taxpayer subsidies.

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But like the little engine that could, or the middle aged rock star that, after twenty years of struggling in sleazy dives has suddenly become an overnight sensation, solar power, having now surpassed the 100 GW threshold, has finally arrived and is good to go, in many places, without subsidies.

True, almost a third of that is in Germany, where the government has aggressively backed its development through the successful deployment of feed-in tariffs (FiT). Germany now has five times as much solar power as the U.S., despite the fact that the levels of sunshine it receives are more comparable to Alaska than Arizona, or even Florida (which is closer to Spain).

China is growing faster than any other country and is expected to surpass Germany and take the number one spot this year.